Sodom and Gomorrah
Sicario’s gripping and bloody sequel, Day of Soldado, hits close to homeŝand the headlines
for tension and thrills, few 2015 films surpassed Sicario. Written by Taylor Sheridan and directed by Denis Villeneuve, it hit the indie film trifecta: critical raves, multiple Academy Award nominations and a tidy profit of close to $85 million—nearly triple its budget. A sequel was quickly announced.
Sicario took place on Mexico’s border, with the FBI, Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration trying to bring down a brutal Juárez cartel. It starred Emily Blunt as Kate Macer, a virtuous FBI agent disgusted by the methods of her superiors—matt Graver (Josh Brolin), the head of the government task force, and his lone wolf hit man, Alejandro Gillick, played chillingly by Benicio del Toro .
For the sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, returning screenwriter Sheridan has discarded moral judgment— and thus too with Blunt’s character. The story this time centers on Gillick. He and Graver are now dealing with Mexican drug cartels bringing terrorists into the U.S. Their plan: to instigate a war between rival gangs by kidnapping one drug kingpin’s teenage daughter—gillick’s job.
As with the original film, the plot is dense with detail and demands close attention, and the spare, desolate desert landscape is beautifully shot. Very soon too it’s stained with blood, as Soldado unfolds in a flash of roadside executions and paper-thin escapes. And del Toro delivers a compellingly deranged performance; his final scene is worth the ticket price.
It was his character who attracted Italian director Stefano Sollima to the project—specifically, the paradox of a man who, in a smart twist, evolves from the vengeful assassin of Sicario (Gillick’s family was murdered by the Juárez kingpin) to the unexpected protector of his kidnap victim. This time, says Sollima, “he goes against all he believes, including the mission.”
The Italian director, whose work includes the acclaimed crime series Gomorrah and the 2012 film ACAB— All Cops Are Bastards, is the son of the late spaghetti western director Sergio Sollima. Like his father, he’s a fan of antiheroes. “Not bad people,” says Sollima. “People that for different reasons are on the other side [of the law].” In that, he’s found a perfect match in Sheridan, whose nuanced characters (see also Hell or High Water and Wind River) are good people who do bad things, or vice versa. “There’s not a lot of pure evil in the world, but it’s amazing how little it takes to do great damage,” he told Newsweek last year. “Most of us don’t confront pure anything. Our life involves a whole lot of 60/40 and 70/30.”
Sheridan is preoccupied with current events that tear families apart, and it’s impossible to watch Soldado—set on the militarized border of Mexico—and not think of the real crisis dominating headlines. Sollima dodges questions about U.S. immigration policies; his film, he says, speaks to universal issues. “It’s so relevant, it goes beyond politics. This has to do with human beings,” he says. “It’s the same all over the world. They pay money, they risk their lives, they die for a dream. And the dream is to live a better life.”